Peoria Players has given us the yin and yang of Weimar Germany with its recent offerings of “The Sound of Music” and “Cabaret.”  TSOM is all country, set in the Alps of Salzburg with singing nuns, children, true love and a happy ending. “Cabaret” is urban, decadent Berlin, set in a sleazy club where sexual tourists of a distinctly “non-parochial” appetite, either for cheese-cake or beef-cake or both, are served. It is a city of despair, brought on from the over throw of the Kaiser, massive inflation, widespread  unemployment  and the resulting social unrest following Germany’s defeat in the Great War.  “Cabaret” opened on Broadway in 1966, eight years after TSOM, but as a popular commercial from those times stated, “you’ve come a long way, baby” and there is no happy ending here.

Chip Joyce provided the direction and set design for the production and it was a pleasure to watch. The pacing was crisp with interesting transitions between the world of the night club and that of the rooming house. The structure of musical theater is cinematic with numerous settings used in each act. There is nothing more defeating for a production than to have the audience sitting in the dark waiting for scenery to be moved. The usual answer to this structural form is to use the fly loft, revolves and/or wagons to quickly move from scene to scene. Mr.  Joyce without any of those devices available, save for a wagon for the band, used a very effective unit set that allowed for quick but effective changes of locale. It was this design decision that, along with the talented cast, made the production so pleasurable.

Erica Franken  is what is known as “a triple threat” in that she can sing, dance and act with equal skill and she was marvelous as the night club singer, Sally Bowles.  Audiences still remember her playing the title role  in “Sylvia” (a puppy), or her show stopping tap choreography in “Anything Goes”  at Corn Stock a few summers ago. Her vocal talent is on display here with flawless renditions of “Maybe This Time” and the title song at the end, “Cabaret” when the character chooses club life over domestic tranquility by deciding to end her pregnancy, brought about by her boyfriend Cliff, well played by Chris Leasor, and so deciding to stay in Berlin rather than flee with him  to America.

The Master of Ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub is well played by Aaron Elwell who was so funny in the delightful “Spamalot” last summer at the tent. This is the role that made Joel Grey a star and Mr. Elwell brings clowning, and abandon in equal measure to the role. He is lots of fun to watch. His song, “If You Could See Her”  which is a comic  burlesque number of love sung to someone in a gorilla suit ( if you want high art go to the opera) was right on the mark; especially the final sly ad-lib which in a breath completely establishes the politics of the times  when he caters to the growing Nazi mentality in the club audience by adding, “she doesn’t look Jewish at all” is played just right.

The Corn Stock winter playhouse produced an evening of short one-act plays and sketches by local playwright Hale Garrison with a composite title of “Humanity Stew.” The evening consisted of comedy and satire, as well as more serious subjects that commented on our contemporary experience.  “Effingham, Illinois” is a hilarious send up of a very dysfunctional family of hicks and red necks, waiting for a Thanksgiving meal to be served by the mother who has been into the box  wine and finds everything very funny when she serves ham instead of turkey to which the father can only shake his head in disgust and mutter, “effing- ham”!  Mr. Garrison scores a direct hit on current self-absorption and the caustic effects of new media in his play “My Show,” which has characters caught  between reality TV programming and YouTube video and who  see their relationships through the lens of digital cameras and streamed video on their digital devices. “Precious Pretty Puppies” is a deft psychological study of three exotic dancers, backstage, as they prepare themselves for “showtime.” With a word here, and a pause there, Mr. Garrison suggests a world of longing and emptiness and his writing is a model of economy and expression.

Coming to Players on  March 13 will be Lee Wenger, our foremost player of Gilbert and Sullivan, in my  favorite example of British Empire silliness, “The Pirates of Penzance.”  If you appreciate  toe tapping music and big hearted fun  then you might wish to call the box office at 688-4473 and make your arrangements to attend one of the few performances given over two weekends.